When most people plan an outdoor event, they hope that it won’t rain, but not Pittsburg State University ROTC.

“I was hoping it would rain Friday night and make it a little muddier,” said ROTC Cadet Kole Giles, who was in charge of Gorilla Dash.

The 5K obstacle course was held Saturday at the PSU Baja Course, located about three-quarters of a mile east of the Rouse-Centennial intersection.

“We wanted to do a health and wellness event for the community, and the senior class wanted to develop a project,” Giles said. “This is our capstone event for the ROTC Unit. This is a first-time event, and we’d like to do it again.”

He said the course included mud pits, climbing walls, tire fields, hurdles, low crawls, a small rope bridge over a creek bed and pulling events.

“People could participate in buddy pairs or teams of five to seven people,” Giles said. “Teams have to pull a Humvee, but we thought that might be a little too much for two people, so they have to pull tires.”

Winning was based on completing the course in the fastest time, with members of teams racing together and the team’s time based on when the last member crossed the finish line.

For safety reasons, participants had to be 17 or older.

Lt. Col. Christopher Lambert, military science department chairman, said that the event was all ROTC-sponsored, with the expenses paid from the cadet fund.

Around 34 teams had taken part by 2 p.m. Saturday, with two more hours to go before the event closed at 4 p.m.

Cadet Kristina Willis said that she had gone through the course the first time in a buddy pair and the second time with a team.

“I’m about ready to go through a third time in a buddy pair,” she said. “This is fun. The mud pit is the most fun, but for some it might be the most challenging.”

The event was a little hard on her clothes. Willis said her brown shirt was white when she started the course.